Surf Diaries

Hello everyone!! Today was a very exciting day, Dr. D and I made a trip to the University of Virginia's Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections library. While I was researching last week I came across a collection of the Morris Family papers that were located at U.V.A's special collections library.  From the description online, the Morris Family papers contained many letters, business and legal documents, wills, and other papers belonging to three generations of the family.  Before coming to the library, I was unsure of what I would find but I was very happy after the trip as you can tell!  Looking through the papers that were in 9 Hollinger boxes, I was able to find crucial information to help drive my research.  For example, I was able to find a slave list/record of the slaves that Anne Watson owned at the time all of the slaves in the Southern states were proclaimed free.  According to the list, Anne Watson owned 70 slaves after Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.  I was also able to find that the Morris family owned slaves and property in Kentucky, which was a piece of information I did not know.  Even though I found a lot of information, a lot of questions came up with the information that was uncovered. For example, who is Anne Watson?(I have to make this connection and figure out where Anne Watson lived on the property) The positive to finding all of this information is that it gives me so much more to work with and now I have another prime location to conduct my research.  I also have access to Morris family information that will not be given to me by the current landowner.  All in all, today was a very good day and it was a much needed boast to my confidence after learning of the landowner's feelings towards research of any kind including mine.........until next time everyone!

Posted by NA | Permanent Link